Friends in a Forge
by Western Witch
Summary: My take on what Arya and Gendry were thinking when they reunited in Winterfell's forge.


**Anyone else want to help me lynch the show's producers and writers for not giving Arya/Gendry fans a better reunion?  
I don't know about anyone else but I laughed so hard when they showed the shot of Drogon's face watching Dany and Jon about to mate. Funniest thing I'd seen in a while! **

**Also don't worry. The next chapter of A Second Chance is almost done and I hope to post it before Good Friday.**

_**Usual disclaimers**_**, Game of Thrones doesn't belong to me. I wish it did cause that way I could make the characters do what I want them to instead. Seriously, some of those characters are a pain in the ass to write the way you want them to behave.**

**Friends in a Forge**

**Gendry**

"_Leave him be."_

And there she was.

Gendry looked behind the Hound to find Arya Stark of House Stark staring down the Hound with a cold but neutral look upon her face while she verbally sparred with him. Gendry couldn't help himself as his eyes quickly roved up and down her body in order to reassure himself that she was there and in one piece before returning his attention to the conversation between the two.

Gendry had to fight a smile when Arya reminded the Hound that she had robbed him first before she left him to die. Gods he had missed her, had missed her fire, her spunk, her determination, but even Gendry, stupid bull he might be, had noticed that she no longer appeared to have that fire anymore. To Gendry's eye, she was now as icy and remote as her homeland was. He wasn't sure what to think of her now or how to act.

But, damn she looked GOOD.

She was all women now even though she was still small. A fierce warrior woman she may be but to Gendry, she was still "little Arry". Gendry remembered a time when she was even smaller and all he wanted to do was protect her from everything. But he hadn't had he? He had stayed with the Brotherhood without Banners instead of going with his "little Arry". As a reward for his faithlessness, the Brotherhood had sold him to the Red Witch and he hadn't seen or heard anything of his "Arry" until today for he believed her to be dead and she thought the same of him he was sure.

**Arya**

"_You're a cold little bitch aren't you?"_

The Hound's statement rung in her mind and she found that she couldn't disagree with him as her eyebrow quirked upward a slightly as if to say "So? What's your point?" She swore that he wore a faint look of admiration and pride on his face when he said it was why she was still alive. Arya didn't see why he would comment on that. He of all people know how much of a powerful motivators hate and love are.

He was the one who taught her that lesson after all.

As she turned and followed the Hounds progress out of the forge, Arya took a moment to collect her thoughts and lock down her emotions that had busted through her carefully constructed walls at the sight of her oldest friend and if she was being particularly honest with herself (which even Arya would admit was a rare occurrence) Gendry had also been her first real crush on a boy.

And that was something she would never ever admit too even under torture.

Gods he looked so different without that mop of black hair that marked his blood as Baratheon in combination with his blue eyes. He was taller and more muscular but also skinnier in a way. She guessed that he had most likely gone hungry, like she also had since they last met.

When she had seen him on his horse entering Wintertown, her heart had sped up and she had wanted to shed tears of happiness, but she had school her face and emotions instead. She was a Faceless man, a professional assassin she ruled her emotions, not the other way around.

And every bit of that training, all the walls she built around herself had shattered the instant she had seen her old friend alive. Arya mentally shook herself and focused on the present and not the past.

His blue eyes however were just as bright and intense as she remembered.

No matter how much she had tried to forget him, she would always remember his eyes and his special smile, the one he only used around her when they were alone.

Ok, she could admit it to herself, she had missed her friend.

But she'd never tell him that.

**Gendry**

"_That's a nice axe you made for him. You've gotten better."_

"_Yeah thanks. So have you…I mean…you look…good"_

"_Thanks. So do you"_

Oh yeah, that wasn't awkward at all!

Gendry cringed internally. By the Old Gods and the New, did he really sound that pathetic? He must do as Arya's reaction, or in this case lack thereof, told him all he needed to know. He felt embarrassed and uncomfortable right at this moment.

He needed a distraction.

Right then, the dead were coming and he still had dragonglass weapons to make and he had long ago mastered the ability to speak to Arya and still continue working at the same time. It was as skill he had developed in order to survive in Harrenhal.

His master in Harrenhal wasn't a obliging type and ruled the blacksmiths with an iron hand but he also left Gendry alone due to the fact that the boy was talented and normally churned out twice the amount of work than the other smiths during his shift and while he didn't like that "Arry" would visit the forge, the fact that "Arry" didn't really do anything that distracted the young blacksmith and that she would also bribe Gendry's "Master" with extra titbits of food from the kitchen, he would allow her to visit her friend. So Arya would sit somewhere close to him in the forge and talk while Gendry listened and occasionally gave her his opinion.

He turned away and started moving back towards his workbench that was already loaded with a variety of dragonglass weapons along with arrowheads and spearheads just waiting to be attached to the required shafts. Arya followed him.

"_It's not a bad place to grow up, if it wasn't so cold_

As Gendry wasn't sure how to speak to this new version of Arya, he decided to fall back on old tactics that he knew would work on her… or so he hoped;

When in doubt, tease Arya and hope for laughter.

**Arya**

"_Stay close to that forge then."_

"_Is that a command Lady Stark?"_

"_Don't call me that"_

"_As you wish, milady."_

And there it was. The smile he reserved only for her.

Arya looked at Gendry then breathed a small laugh. She had missed the stupid bull. She had missed his stupid sense of humour, missed his stupid smile and missed his stupid face and she had missed him teasing her.

She even missed him calling her Milady!

By the Old Gods and the New, she had missed him.

Arya graced him with a smile and handed over the rolled up parchment she had been holding.

"_Here's my wish." _

**Gendry**

Gendry took the parchment out of her hands and looked at what she had designed. It looked like a spear with a detectable dragonglass spearhead. Gendry was intrigued. It looked like it was designed to fight the Others and Gendry knew who he would be making it for and it wouldn't be for the King.

"_Can you make it?"_

Could he make it!

Gendry felt almost insulted but knew she was only teasing him. She of all people knew just how skilled he was and the question was just her way of trying to get a rise out of him. It seemed to Gendry that the more time they spent speaking to each other, the more it seemed that no time had passed between them at all. Gendry had felt a bit of relief when she laughed at his "milady" comment.

It seemed she wasn't a complete Ice Queen. Not yet anyway.

"_What do you need something like this for?"_

Oh he knew why she needed something like this weapon. He just wanted to see if she would admit it, but of course, no matter what her age, it seems that Arya Stark would always be stubborn and wouldn't admit to anything. Gendry found it somewhat reassuring that her base nature hadn't changed all that much over the years.

"_Can you make it or not?"_

Gendry wanted to growl at her. That little cheeky wolf! She was deliberately trying to provoke him! Well, two could play at that game and his "milady" would find that he had learned how to play the game a little over the years.

Right, time to play.

**Arya**

"_You already have a sword. What's that?" _

Arya kept her face a blank mask although inside she was dying to punch him. He was just as stubborn as she remembered! He wasn't going to make this easy for her and Arya found herself enjoying their easy repartee as they slipped back into their old ways of speaking to each other.

Arya saw that Gendry was pointing to her catspaw knife and decided to let him look at it. With a quick pull and twirl of her fingers, the Valyrian Steel knife had been presented to Gendry hilt first. He reached out two hands and lifted the knife out of her hand as he examined the blade in the light from the forge.

"_It's Valyrian Steel." _His tone was one of slight surprise.

"_I always knew you were just another rich girl." _ He said to her with a slight smile, his voice teasing her.

Arya knew he said that just to get a rise out of her but Arya couldn't let that comment pass without one of her own.

Arya gave Gendry a look of her own and deftly plucked the dagger out of his hands. With another twirl of her fingers, the knife was safely put back in its sheath while Gendry watched her.

"_You don't know any other rich girls."_

And with a slight smile on her face, Arya turned away from Gendry and started to leave the forge. She could feel Gendry's eyes on her as she was leaving and although she didn't want to she couldn't help but turn and look back at him, smile and turn back to the entrance of the forge and leave, all without saying goodbye.

As Arya left the forge, she finally felt more like Arya Stark and less like No One. Not even coming home had affected her so much that she lost control of her emotional state like he made her do.

All it had taken to make her forget her training was the man who was her bastard blacksmith friend and first crush.

Arya smiled as she finally made it into the freezing cold air of the North.

**Gendry**

Gendry turned away from the doors that Arya had just left through and back to his back to his workbench. He picked up the parchment with Arya's strange spear design and started to think on what he would need to do in order to make the weapon to Arya's high standards.

Before he got started on making more dragonglass weapons, he stopped for a moment in order to ponder on the mysterious smile he had received from her as she left the forge. Gendry desperately hopped that they both survived what was coming because he wanted to explore what that smile may or may not mean for both of them.

With a rueful smile of his own, Gendry headed back towards the forge and started to concentrate on making more dragonglass arrowheads as well as starting on the bladelike spearhead for Arya's weapon. While they may not have many days left, there was always tomorrow and Gendry knew that he had finally found somewhere to belong and it had been where he always suspected his "home" would be.

With Arya in Winterfell.


End file.
